Posted on 01/24/2008 9:47:43 PM PST by Graybeard58
The 2008 primary election process has clearly been unfair to conservative candidates, and here's why. Several liberal and moderate/independent states chose to hold their primary elections and caucuses early, all wanting to be first — so they said. But look at what has happened as a result. Conservative candidates like Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter have been drummed out of the race by breaking their bank accounts in non conservative states before the rest of the country ever had a chance to vote for them. Is this what we call "fair and democratic elections"?
These are supposed to be national elections, not independent state elections. By allowing some states to hold primaries before others gives those states the advantage to propel or retard the individual campaigns depending on the political landscape of those few states. As we are now seeing, when liberal and moderate states hold early elections, conservative candidates have no chance of ever making it into the general election or winning the presidency.
If we are ever again to have fair elections in this country, then primary elections are going to have to be standardized and held on the same day in all states, if everyone is to have a chance to participate in the election process. Either that or there is going to have to be a media blackout until everyone has had a chance to vote. Election returns are not allowed to air until the polls are closed. Does it make any sense that we should be seeing election returns from other states before we even have a chance to go to the polls? I don't want a few small states deciding who we can vote for in the party primary elections.
We hear so much about voter disenfranchisement these days but nobody is talking about the disenfranchisement of conservatives to vote for candidates who share their views. If your favorite candidate is purged from the race early, then where is your right to vote for the candidate of your choice? "Write ins?" In most voting methods today there is no provision to write in a candidate's name, and even if there were, what chance would he have of winning? Most voters are going to vote for a name printed on the ballot. This year we have seen the largest disenfranchisement of voters in history, and they are all conservatives.
Did this occur by chance, or was it planned from the start? Considering the ambitions of George Soros and Billary Clinton to gain and hold power over the country by any means necessary, by hook or by crook, I can't dismiss the possibility that this was no accident. Yet the Republican leadership will never challenge the legitimacy of elections or the likelihood of voter fraud on the part of the Democrats. It's almost as though they are willing parties to election corruption.
Now the media wants us to think that John McCain is the frontrunner for the Republicans in spite of fact that he is the most liberal Republican in the race. McCain will never be elected president, the conservative base simply will not vote for him. Most of them would rather vote for Ron Paul who may be a conservative alternative on a 3rd party ticket in November, or they will simply not vote at all, just as they did in 2006. Why go to the polls to vote if no one you like is running?
The purpose of voting is having your voice heard and counted for the candidate of your choice; not about electing a political party that no longer represents your views. We are tired of voting for the lesser of two evils in America. What's the point when it's simply six of one, and a half dozen of the other, both choices bad? Voters who feel disenfranchised will simply throw up their hands and say "why bother?" McCain would be preferable to the Clintons or Obama only on the issue of national security. On most other issues, there is virtually little difference.
Liberal economic policies have dominated Washington ever since George W. Bush was elected. The government continues to pump worthless money into the economy just like they did this week with the cut in interest rates, which only makes the problem worse. The economy should be controlled by the free market, not the government. This is just another example of the Communism that has been taking over America.
Every time the government does something to influence the economy, it just gets worse. That is the same thing that destroyed the Soviet Union. Eventually it just went bankrupt trying to control the Russian economy and "take care of its people," just like the Democrats are campaigning on right now. Problems only get worse when government gets involved. The government is the problem, not the solution.
The economy has to be allowed to flow freely and seek its own level, influenced only by the marketplace. Anytime the government interferes with that using what they call "stimulus," it causes more inflation and our money declines in value, resulting in only an artificial and temporary fix. The real fix is to let the economy seek its own market level, not pump it up with artificial stimulus just to make the numbers look good on paper.
Yet, the American voters are still too ignorant to see it and continue voting for these liberals in both parties who are driving the country straight into Communism. The Democrat plan of dumbing down America over the past couple of generations has been successful. It's too late now to re-educate the people, because it has become too widespread. I'm afraid we have already lost the country. We have tried to warn them for decades but they wouldn't listen. They insist on asking what their country can do for them, rather than what they can do for their country.
With our money becoming worth less and less, and our products dependent mostly on foreign trade, even Washington spending more money to keep 'the people' alive won't help; it will all just be worthless. Bush and the Congress should have seen this coming years ago but ignored it. They all invested in their own survival by giving our money to special interests and pork vendors who they expect will pay them back personally after the crash of our economy.
With Fred Thompson now out of the race, I'm almost ready to switch my support to Ron Paul and throw them a real turkey. His foreign policy is a disaster but he's a strict constitutionalist and will veto every bill the Congress tries to pass that includes unconstitutional spending, which is just about all of them.
Of course, Paul won't win the elections — no way, no how. He will likely run as a 3rd party candidate, splitting the Republican Party in two because the Republican Party no longer seems to represent real conservatives. I don't think Paul is the right man for the job but I would like to see some of his policies regarding constitutional government established in Washington.
I'm starting to think now that this may be the time for a mass exodus from the Republican party and the right time to form a 3rd party of conservatives, but without the antiwar, anti-defense, blame America first attitude of the Paul Libertarians.
It doesn't look like it's going to get any better in the Republican Party, they had their chance. Every real conservative who speaks out seems to get thrown under the bus just like moderates do in the Democrat party. Remember George Allen, Rick Santorum, and Tom Delay? Many of us hoped that Republicans would have learned their lesson from the 2006 elections. That being that "you can't beat the Democrats by trying to be like them." Instead, the Republicans have become the Socialist party, while the Democrats have become the Communist party. I've had enough of it.
There is a chance that Romney can hold Republicans together but not McCain or Huckabee. Nor can Giuliani, but he will probably be next to drop out if Huckabee doesn't beat him to it. Romney is going to have problems with some Evangelicals who won't support him on religious grounds, and conservatives will not support or vote for McCain. There is little chance we can win in November. The Republican Party has destroyed itself by trying to be like Democrats.
There is the possibility that the Republican party has been corrupted by Democrats crossing over to vote for Republicans in the primary in order to accomplish just what we see happening. It could all be part of a plot hatched by George Soros and the Clintons to do just that. It's something to consider. Otherwise, I just can't make any sense out of the way the Republicans are voting today. Where have all of the conservatives gone? To their graves? Or were they all waiting to vote for a conservative in the states that now will not have that opportunity?
A mass exodus from the Republican Party, now on the heels of Thompson's departure, would send a clear message to the party leadership that they have gone astray and are on the verge of collapse if they don't come back to the conservative base. In the meantime, even registered as independent voters without party affiliation, we can still vote against the democrats and for the Republican candidate or anyone else we choose.
Conservatives are loyal to their values and beliefs, not to a political party. The Republican Party no longer shares those values and beliefs and no longer deserves the support of conservatives. I will reregister as an independent voter until I see a third party emerge that represents my beliefs. In the meantime, I consider myself just another disenfranchised conservative voter.
I have no idea why they're not done this way, since we can certainly manage to hold a presidential election on the same day across the country.
Disenfranchised Conservative Voter. A DCV—pretty much sums it up.
For God’s sake, will you Republicans LISTEN????????
Good article! Exactly my sentiments! I cannot, for the life of me, figure out who to vote for in FL primary! I’d tend to go with Ann’s choice, but I don’t agree with her on her choice and I cannot understand what she didn’t like with Fred or Duncan. I was shocked when she picked Romney!
The reason they are not standardized is that the federal government does not have control over the primary elections - and the states have no incentive to standardize them. They benefit from the exaggerated and brief attention generated by the primary frenzy within their borders. The increase in room tax revenues alone in New Hampshire is probably a huge boost to a place that would disappear from everyone’s attention span if we went to a national primary.
In this election cycle, the process was taken one step further. Poll results are generated by the MSM, and the MSM demonstrates a huge liberal bias and they obviously tilted the polls to show anticonservative results. Those polls were used to exclude the most conservative candidate from the debates in the EARLIEST PRIMARIES. So, we had biased media conducting biased polls and using that biased data to exclude the candidate they didn’t like, even though he had won a delegate and some of those jerks who had higher poll results hadn’t a single delegate to their name.
On Poll Results and the End of Conservatism
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1951282/posts
Good Grief! This author has put to words exactly the discussions in this house. Every word is identical. Every thought is identical.
WOW!
Good article by the way.
I understand, I mean "why" in the larger sense. The answer of course is that the earlier states like the money that flows into them--thus, the states that care more about getting a few more bucks for themselves are in the position of choosing the nominee for ALL of us. Wow, how's that for patriotism?
btt
My primary isn’t until May 20th. By then, the real process will be over. I’m being disenfranchised.
Forget the message, there is no conservative gonna get elected in November. I'd love for a candidate to step forward and pull 25% of Republicans away from the party trappings and tell the elitists, adios amigos.
Primaries and caucuses are purely internal party affairs used to choose a candidate, which involved the States ONLY because the two major parties were successful in using the State general election machinery, money and polling place for FREE. This has allowed the State Legislatures to meddle in internal party matters.
The National Republican Party at the 2008 Convention could choose to CHANGE to way that the Republican Primaries are funded, when they are conducted and WHO can vote in said same primaries or caucases.
The States do not need to do anything, the Republican Party at the 2008 Convention needs to do something about 2012, in addition to selecting a 2008 Presidential and Vice-Presidential ticket.
dvwjr
Quit whining. You very well may get to decide this thing.
Somehow, it’s gotten to the point where candidates are expected to campaign for 2 years before the first primary or caucus day even occurs. Then everything’s over and decided 2 weeks later!
Plus, early open primaries screw us really good!
These are word for word the comments of the Keyes, Bauer and Forbes supporters in 2000.
You go to war with the Army you have. It was Bush in 2000 and that victory got us John Roberts, Samuel Alito, sharp tax cuts and a permanent military presence on the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world.
If Gore had been elected we would have NONE of that. None. Not a single item.
You go to war with the Army you have. Romney is going to be the Army this year.
Prepare for battle.
Now that could be interesting.
Alas, they've melded with the Democrats so far and for so long that they would now regard the departure of conservatives as that irritating burr known as ethics and conscious removed from their saddle. Free at last to romp with the donkeys in the fields of big government socialism and free to bite the constituents who fed them!
But how do we establish and sustain a Conservative Party in an environment where the ruling two have jiggered the rules to insure no third party has a chance? The "winner take all" delegate system is the largest hurdle to overcome.
First, Fred Thompson was the guy who shot Fred Thompson. I liked Fred's positions, but he made a bunch of miscalculations. There was a lot of support for him, but everyone else was running for a year before he laced up his shoes. He campaigned like he was disinterested in the whole process.
Duncan Hunter never got out of single digits. Heck, he barely got to single digits. I know the MSM wouldn't cover him, but if he was really electable, he would have figured out a way to make his name better known than the guy who played Squiggy on Laverne and Shirley.
Okay, here's the news flash: There are not enough conservatives to swing an election without forming a coalition with other people.
We've been running a circular firing squad since 1992. Pat Buchanan started it. Bush wasn't good enough for Buchanan, so he threw a tantrum and broke up the Republican party. Good for him. He blasted Bush and weakened him enough that Perot could finish him off. After doing his best to destroy the Republican party, he picked up his dolly and dishes and went to Perot's Reform party, helping to break it up.
Everybody CLAIMS they want Reagan to come back. Well, how about bringing back this part of Reagan's philosophy: "Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican." Let's debate issues, stand for principles, and seek the best candidate we can. When that is done, let's put aside animosity and work to elect our candidate.
The RNC rakes in much more money when the Democrats are in office. When their liberal RINOs are in office, they get mostly Nada Pesos ™.
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